


Summertime Nightmares

by BloodRedFloatingBalloon



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: 1900s, 1904, Book and film quotes, Brutal Murder, Child Murder, Community: rdjverse, Could Be Canon, Crimson peak Elements, Epic Bromance, Everything has a secret symbolism, F/M, Horror, How Do I Tag, I'll tag more... eventually, IT elements, John and Mary Watson have children, New case, Original Russian Character, Past Sexual Abuse, She's the glue that can stick them together, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes non-slash fic, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Symbolic Dreams, There won't be romance from the first second the boys meet her, Trains, Victorian Sherlock Holmes, alternative universe, nah
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:40:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25369252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodRedFloatingBalloon/pseuds/BloodRedFloatingBalloon
Summary: It was middle July of the year 1904. Thirteen years had passed since the Late Professor James Moriarty died at the Reichenbach Falls, and thirteen years after Sherlock Holmes showed his face again to the world remarking that he was still alive.Everything had changed. Trust no-one, many advised. Clouds of wickedness took over the new century: murders, thefts, and-so-on, crazing with arousal the consultant detective and with headache the paterfamilias doctor.A series of child murdering at Plymouth, Devonshire brought the two gentlemen and a young woman with crossed purposes. The three of them are called to solve the case for different reasons: one for fighting stagnation, one for one-last adventure, and one due to an lust and morbid curiosity.*** this story is also posted on Wattpad by me under the username MissPoisonousLove***!!!DISCLAIMER!!!I don't own Sherlock Holmes nor John Watson! I wish I had XD. All the rights go to the Late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Warner Bros and the amazing actors that portrait them.But I do own this story. Which is based on one dream I had two years ago.
Relationships: Mary Morstan/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/Original Female Character(s), Sherlock Holmes/Roxanne Fedorova
Kudos: 22





	1. Preface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We have the articles for Little Mary Brown's unfair death!

The Devil Strikes Again!

After two weeks of searching three-year-old Mary Brown, the body of the unfortunate toodler was found at Cattledown half-eaten by fish. An elder fisherman named Jason O'Sullivan had fished the child's leg up. "When I saw what I got on my fish-hook, I screamed. I hope they'll catch the killer. Who could have killed an innocent toodler like this? God save our children and give strength to its parents."

Unhappy End to Browns' Drama

Yesterday, Thursday 15 of July the body of Browns' toodler only-child was found dead near Cattewater. A senior citizen fisher was the unfortunate to find the macarbe. Both of her legs are missing, while the right was fished by the elder. The child is beaten up with broken left arm, strangled neck, and half of her face missing due to fish feeding. Mr and Mrs Edmund Brown are wretched after the uneviable final of their drama.

The Twelfth Victim of the Monstrous Devil

Mary Antoinette Brown, age three, was found drown at Cattewater. She's the twelfth child that was murdered here in Plyrmouth since June the same year. The other lost children are: Edward Henry Mason age 7 04/06, Elizabeth Rosalie McQueen age 12 06/06, Thomas Stewart Long age 4 08/06, Jean Paul and Jacqueline Roux age 6 and 2 12/06, Anthony Peter Clarke age 14 17/06, Emmaline Candace Swan age 11 21/06, Stephanie Sophia Black age 8 26/06, Jerome Alexis Clinton age 4 01/07, Robert John Phillips age 1 04/07, Zachary Howard Jones age 6 12/07.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did you find it? Did you like it? Please leave kudos or a comment! You are the ones who help me improve my work!
> 
> Lots of Kisses,  
> Ksenia♡


	2. Vacations and Trains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As we all know Mr Sherlock Holmes has this bad habit of abducting Dr John Watson from his family and wife!

"I'm really really sorry, Mary. But I have to go. I have to..." A tall man in his early fifties mumbled at his sentence's ending. 

The man opened a suitcase to throw inside his possible objects of requirement. He turned his body and walked towards the wooden wardrobe. He opened it and tossed aside the clothing he could need: four shirts - or maybe he should take six? - five troussers and tweed, seven ties and belts, four pairs of shocks, two pairs of shoes and one of boots, three waistcoats, five underpants and vests, two pyjamas and pairs of slippers. Or were those too many? He didn't know. Hell! He didn't know how long he was to be departed from his wife and children.

His movements were mechanical, fast and steady. The fifty-two-year-old man checked briefly his suitcase every time a new item was clumsily thrown inside. Adrenaline's sweat ran down his tired face but he didn't care less. The childish perkiness in his blue eyes transformed him into a man of his early thirties with wrinkles on his face and graying blond hair.

His gaze was fixed on his wife, whom folded perfectly his clothings, a weary smile ghosting his features. The woman, then, took a drawstring bag and placed the slippers and her husband's shoes, and then back to the suitcase. When she finished, her smile didn't match her eyes - but still, she knew better than anyone, those two men were brothers by bond not blood, and soulmates no-one could separate.

And that married couple was Doctor John Hamish and Mary Elizabeth Watson.

"Thank you," Dr Watson placed a tender yet passionate kiss on his wife's pouty lips. "For understanding." He licked his lips and stared down at his wife's amber eyes.

"You know how much I love you, John, don't you?" She snaked her hands around his torso and embraced him, "you are happy. I want you to be happy. For ten years you haven't smiled. It wasn't as if my husband was a ghost and not alive. When our children were born, you did smile. But it was the kind of smile you had lost, different but not the same. He did return from the Dead, didn't he?" She laughed dryly and kissed him once again.

"I love you and I thank whoever brought you in my life!" He exhaled breathlessly and kissed his wife once more hungrily.

Mrs Watson broke the kiss and away from her husband's tight embrace, swirled on her heels and walked towards the wooden door, locked it and as she turned to face Dr Watson, he grabbed her from her waist spunning her to their bed and kissed her the same way he did on their wedding night, leaving her breathless and wanting more of his attention. Their lovemaking didn't last as long as they could wish for but it was worthy. They panted, gasped, moaned, kissed, and hit the peak of ecstasy and euphoria together, because this intercourse was a journey that both partners worked to please and worshipped equally their significant other.

When they concluded their amourous intercourse, they lay down hugging - Mrs Watson's head rested on her husband broad lean hairy blond chest, his arms around her in a tight embrace gazing at his wife's almost-sleeping form. Her ginger hair was messy like a lion's mane. Her creamy arms had dust of freckles on her shoulder blade. She breathed in and out steadily. Then, Dr Watson cleaned her face from her mane and looked inquisitively at her. Her thin lips were smiling, her red lashes long touching her cheeks: her face peaceful. Along with the trace of freckles, he detected few wrinkles around her eyes and lips. She was after all a woman that traversed fourty-three years of age.

Doctor Watson wanted to stay there laying beside his beautiful wife and never leave her side, but he was going. He was supposed to go. He was meant to go. He was bound to go. He was pledged to go. He was obligated to go. He was binded to go. 

It was a matter of companionate integrity! 

Doctor Watson carefully relocated his wife trying not to wake her up - she did wince although, and the doctor froze in place, but as she was heavily sleeping he placed her gently and a tender kiss on her forehead and murmured an I love you to her sleeping form.

Then, the good doctor stood from his bed and got dressed, as he wore his boots, long coat and fedora, he walked at his bedside. He opened the first drawer and took a pen and his notebook. Thence, he wrote down some note quickly: I will send you a telegram when we arrive. Please forgive me, my love. I cannot help it. He needs my assistance, he is my dearest friend. This is one last time, I promise you. I love you dearly, my Mary. - and tore the paper and placed it beside his wife's headrest. He kissed once again her forehead and caressed her face affectionately.

He took his suitcase, his doctor's bag, and an umbrella, and closed the bedroom's wooden door. Therefore, he went to check on his children's bedroom. Firstly, he scoped his fristborn out: Rosa Watson. She slept peacefully. The doctor placed a kiss on his twelve-year-old daughter's forehead. And last, the twins: Harry and James Watson had their turn to be seen from their father. Dr Watson choked a laughter as James was mumbling gibberish. He eyed Harry. His six-year-old was uncovered, and he came close to tuck him in. John Watson loved his children more than anything in this world.

Rosamund Mary Watson was Mr and Mrs Watson's firstborn daughter. She was actually a copy of Mrs Watson. Rosa had rounded face with huge blue irises - she took that trait from her father, and long curly red hair. Her complexion was as pale as the fallen snow and as soft as a shearling. She was tall for her age and graceful. Rosa was the quiet meek and obedient child. The responsible child that everyone favoured.

Her Godfather was Sherlock Holmes but his place was taken pretentiously by his older brother, Mycroft Holmes, during her baptizing ceremony. The eccentric detective was fond dearly of his goddaughter - even though he was uncapable to show affection towards other human beings, because she reminded him in many characteristics of his colleague and partner-in-crime. Mr Holmes wanted what was best for his godchild. She had the brains of her father but unfortunately a female body, and that drove him mad because Rosa would be stained for the rest of her life by society due to her sex. And so, he did everything possible to have his goddaughter a decent education and pupillage, and study in University in the future.

James Conall Watson was the oldest of the twins for thirty-seven minutes. He had curly blond hair and brown irises. His face was covered in freckles and he had dimples. James was a rangy boyo who took a great care of his exterior looks. From early age everyone knew he was bound to be a charismatic young gentleman and heartbreaker. James was a huge flatterer that every visitor in Watsons' house was left with burning cheeks from compliments.

Once upon a spring time, the Watsons had the Martins sisters as visitors to their home: two old spinster women named Pauline and Sophia Martin, as they were familiar to Mrs Watson since her childhood. In 1904 they were fifty-eight and sixty-four in age respectly. They had both wrinkled body like they were raisins, and were ugly with toad-like feautures in their face, Pauline was tall and gaunty with long haunted face, and Sophia was short and as corpulent as a hog. James praised and flattered them confessing his undying admire for their cleverness and missionary work. Also, James lauded their philanthropic work for the "poor and witless" children of the Colonies, and he admitted his dream to grow up like them.

Henry Kenneth Watson was the youngest of the Watson couple's twin sons. His and his twin's childbirth had almost cost their mother's and their own life - very misfortunate indeed, but thank God both Mrs Mary Watson and her newborn twins survived with no damage. Harry was a fraternal twin to James, they looked just like two drops of water. The only thing that deferred him from James was his lack of dimples, his freckles were only across his nose and cheekbones, and he had a gap between his two front teeth.

In personality, Harry Watson was the extreme opposite of his twin James. He didn't put so much effored on his looks like his brother did. Harry was found most of the time with cuts and bruises, because he locked himself in the attic to read books of important scientists who had lived on Earth before him, and attempt few unsuccessful inventions. Well, not all of them were unsuccessful. Harry did once constructed a ballerina tuned music box for his sister's twelfth birthday, which played the nursery of Oranges and Lemons - because the specific nursery reminded him of autumn where his sister was born. It was a simple but magnificent gift for Rosa. Harry was a messy young boy who was believed by many people that he would "stay alone for the rest of his life with his silly inventions as the only companions."

In the Watson House except from the family members, three servants lived with them. A couple of elder people and one middle-aged unmarried woman. The elder couple was Mr Roger and Mrs Ellen Georges. Mr Georges took care of the exterior and heavy business, while his wife Mrs Georges cleaned the house, cooked, and so on. Mr Georges was tall and gaunty with white hair that rarefied at the top of his head. Mrs Georges still had dark brown hair - although she was in the same age with her husband, and had tired brown eyes. Miss Elizabeth Smith was a woman of fourty-five age, a beautiful yet strict English-German governess. Miss Smith was teaching Rosa how to be a proper Englishwoman - Sherlock Holmes despised that nanny, and the twins until they'd reach their eighth age - where bound to go in school. She taught them English, French, German, Latin, history and geography, piano and violin, dance, music, and so on.

In the end, doctor John H. Watson walked downstairs to leave his house's warmness much to his own and his wife's displeasure.

When he opened the front door, he did the same with his umbrella as it started raining frantically and entered his vehicle. The rain pured violently but the doctor managed to drive heading to the train station where the telegram of Mr Sherlock Holmes sent to him informed him where to go.

Unfortunately, Doctor Watson was incommoded by the heavy and thick droplets of summer's rain. The roads were slided and no soul was seen. After fourty-five minutes, fog took over, the violent rainfall had subsided, and the clouds started mizzling. He needed to turn his car's lights on, and so did he. The field was now much clearier than before. He could recognize the existence of other vehicles besides his own by their lighting. It was dangerous to drive that hour in the night with that kind of weather. Only few brave of people drove in the Londian roads with that lethal weather.

Even though, the weather in London became a deadly cataclysm - was it a sign from God? - Dr Watson managed to get to the station on time. He parked his mechanic automobile somewhere in Paddington's Metropolitan Rail and took his luggages. When Dr Watson locked his car and left towards the station, he opened once again his umbrella and ran fastly to Platform 1. He took off from his coat's pocket a telegram that was send to him and read: Be on Platfrom 1 before 00: 06 a.m S.H. and so was he.

"Bloody Hell! I'm going to be late." Doctor Watson cursed under his breath as he took a glimpse at his watch. His blue eyes travelled all over the rained station.

The bustling train station has gradually calmed down as the rumbling of wagons stilled the air. Watson watched discreetly as people hurried to queue in front of where the train’s doors were supposed to be. The cerulean locomotive cautiously moved in with wagons following behind and people hustled forward inside their reserved carriages.

There, close to a carriage his best friend stood holding his own umbrella with his right hand, the left palm was inside his trousers as he usually did, waiting for the late doctor. The man was dressed with a dark emerald waistcoat and matching scarf, and the rest of the entire outfit was in dark grayish tones. He was a man who took a great care of his appearance, always dressed finely. Atop his ebony-brown hair as dark as the Swiss chocolates, that was grizzled around his temples, a fedora was placed hiding his utter mess. His strong jaw and sharp face had stubble. His big chocolate brown eyes prayed on his friend and gleamed widely. That man was the fabled Sherlock Holmes.

"Hello, Watson." Sherlock Holmes took off from his mouth his infamous pipe while he spoked fo his colleague. "Come quickly, we were going to be late and the train will leave soon without us. Terribly inconvenient." He put his pipe again in his mouth and caught the doctor's wirst, while he shut his and his friend's umbrellas and jumped in the wagon. The train conductor punched their tickets and announced the next stop.

A young man dressed in navy blue uniform with black petit handlebad moustachd and blue irises, took the luggage of both men, he was their porter, and guided them to their own couchette. Mr Sherlock Holmes walked painfully slow in the corridor while observing his co-passangers that stood outside their cabins. It was his curse: to see everything. A newlyweds couple was fighting because the man didn't wish to see his in-laws due to their disapproval of him, few children were laughing at the vulgar joke an older one confinded in them. They were allotted to No. 4 derth.

"Holmes," Dr Watson called after him. Sherlock Holmes snapped and turned his gaze to his colleague, "are you coming or you will just stand there?"

"Yes yes." Sherlock Holmes murmured and as their potter was leaving he gave the boy a tip. "Thank you very much for your services." In his tone someone could observe an unitentional mockery.

Their compartment was small and tidy, and it was at the very end of the carriage. It had an late victorian-fashioned decoration such as ornate inlay of the wall and the big window located in the very middle of the compartment, showing the overcast horizontal of the city below as the train stirred fairly slow. The bunk beds had already smoothed the sheets out, they smelled freshly cleaned. The sheets were in an eggish white colour - doctor Watson felt nauseous, maybe it was due to his age? Who could have known? - and the pillows were solid. Also, the bunk beds had hard mattress. The inlay had multiple colourways showcasing a dark atmosphere where the air was the smell of old books. 

"I'll take the lower berth, Watson. If you don't mind," Mr Holmes added while undressing.

"Will you explain to me why are we here?"

A whistle blew, there was a long melancholy cry for the engine. The train prepared its passangers that the journey finally started.

Dr Watson took from his coat's pocket the now crumpled paper and read out loud: "Be on Platfrom 1 before 00: 06 a.m S.H. that's what your telegram says. No explanations. I need to know what are we up to do. How can I help you when you withhold your assignment from me? " 

Mr Holmes was quiet and lay on his berth, using his hands as a pillow and smoking a cigarette.

"I'm being serious and you are smoking? Holmes... only a week had passed since I celebrated my sons' birthday, a week, do you listen? And you have solved a case briefly a month ago. Why can't you take a break for once? This is the last case I am helping you. I warn you. You must figure something sooner or later. We are no longer young. I have responsibilities: a wife and children, I must take care of. And you, you'll die alone, old boy. Maybe take some amateaur detective to assist you, a young who would love to learn things from the great Sherlock Holmes." Doctor John H. Watson mocked in the end.

"Watson, why don't you see, I am trying to sleep?" Mr Holmes opened a brown eye glaring at his companion. "I'll explain to you in the breakfast. I'm extremely tired to do so. Good Night, mother hen." Holmes did not allow any kind of negotiations with the fifty-two-year-old doctor.

"Good Night, old chap." Watson laughed bitternessly.

The blond doctor murmured something under his breath as he was undressing. When he finished and wore his nightclothes, he turned off lights of the two laterns in their room. Then, John Watson made sure their sliding door was secured. The last time he was inside a train with the certain consulting detective, he ended up travelling to Paris on his honeymoon, without his wife, but with his best friend dressed drag, few henchmen of the Late Professor Moriarty trying to kill him and everything got into his nerves.

"Terrible inconvenience." Mr Sherlock Holmes would often say.

It was middle August, the good doctor knew, because he was dressed lightly. He was cladded in white as snow military uniform. Doctor Watson, also, did not need his walking stick to support him anymore, he had no longer his silly limp - as if in his dreams he was healed! Moreover, as Dr John Watson looked his reflection in the nearest mirror, his palm found its soft touch at his shaven cheek and his pupils enlargened as the man who stared at him in the mirror, who mimicked his every movements, was not the old fifty-two years old doctor, but a young version of himself, a long time ago before the Afghanistan War. Perhaps, it was in his times as an medical scholar - yes! He was - in his early twenties. His hair was blond and lushious, it didn't recede, yet. When was it when this begun? Oh right! - his hairline started receding during his years in the armed forces. (He still had nightmares of the War) His face was smooth, he had no moustache, he looked like a specific young shaveling who was chuffed about becoming a doctor and saving thousands of human lives. On the contrary, his eyes were wrong, very extremely wrong: they hadn't their lives and spark, this glimpse of ocean blue irises! - they looked ghastly and grim.

Likewise, the weather was quiet warmer than the month before, id est July. It had this unbearable hotness, it could burn or even melt a man's flesh. The good doctor saw the droplets of his sweat running in his forehead but he didn't mind. Perchance, this particular weather reminded him the one in Afghanistan. The dreadful memories attempted to invade his mind but a soft yet haunting lullaby was overheard concealing any kind of nightmare.

"Oranges and lemons,  
Say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings,  
Say the bells of St. Martin's."

His daughter's lullaby.

Doctor John Hamish Watson heard children's laughter and joy, the flooding water across the nearest sea, could smell the saltiness and hear the seagulls producing their crying voice, forthwith the blond doctor span around his boots' heels on the white sand and a screamed from the bottom of his lungs escaped his young lips.

What Dr John H. Watson saw could be akin to a summertime nightmare. The sea was soaking in thick blood. The weather was foggy and in haar, the sudden coldness crept up his bones. A howling storm followed with the deathly catastrophe. There was this dim light causing the fog to ebb away. Whereupon another outcry broke free from his mouth. 

Doctor Watson saw them: he saw twelve little faces - beasties, demons, monstrosities, abombinations - (a horror he never forgot) monsters he never saw like those before. The children, they were children - abominable creatures, not like his own little three, he noticed, were covered in thick black blood and stood at the center sea. Their faces were distorted and deformed, few had broken skulls, others missing eyes, and the one that had they were icy blue colours, or teeth, teeth yellow as a corpse, or other body parts such as an arm or a leg. Their cries suited to echidnas. The clothes they wore were torn and dirty, their hair messy like a raging monsters.

"Save us! Help us! Redeem us!" The little monsters screamed and grabbed the doctor.

They sank him in the blood sea and he tried to stand but they did not let him go. "Save us! Help us! Redeem us!" His blond hair floated as he kept trying to rise up his head to breathe. He was driving to madness. His open eyes were as red as the children's unfair shedded blood. And his lungs were burning, and even with popped ears the pressure at this depth was dizzying. Doctor Watson screamed and kicked and tried to get up. "Save us! Help us! Redeem us!"

His head sunk once again drowning drowning drowning. "Save us! Help us! Redeem us!" He couldn't breath, couldn't see. Watson kept screaming and blood invaded his poor lungs burning him more. The good doctor held his arms up trying to catch something if he could but with no success. And suddenly, after all that fighting, he started surrendering: embracing the possible ending of his life, consumed by the thick black blood - transformed -aging actually, to the fifty-two-year-old man he was in 1904. He was tired. John Watson was very terribly awfully exhausted. "Save us! Help us! Redeem us!"

A hand grasped him and brought him to the surface, the good doctor gasped and coughed spit blood from his mouth, then met the gaze of his savior: an Angel. A beautiful face suited to a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties if he could deduce. Her iced eyes met his own ocean ones in an understanding gaze, her eyelashes long reaching her cheeks. A sorrowful smile broke in her features as her rose coloured lips stretched. The woman's face was pale and her touch colder than marble. Long voluminous dark curls reached her waist, she was cladded in aery white boat-necklined-with-long-latern-sleeves nightdress. The doctor gawked trying to memorize every single curve of her drear face. She touched his chin with her cold fingers and kissed his forehead softly her lips sending shivers down his spine.

Their eyes met once again, the doctor saw the tears that ran down her cheeks. "You didn't," before he could utter a word, the young woman drove a dagger and cut his throat.

"Ah!" Doctor John Watson gasped and opened his eyelids widely. Cold sweat showered his whole body. His body still trembled like a leaf, his breath still gasping, his head spunning. The memories of the nightmare were fresh just like a freshly baked artisan bread, still hot. His brain and body didn't function, instead they were depent on those dreadful scenes. He kept hearing noises and voices, cries and begs, and he saw the flashing weary smile the young lady held.

Sleeping paralysis was screwing him, and to be said, he never experienced such a dread. Not even when he still kept dreaming about the Afghanistan War. Every time he dreamt of those days, every time his brain stormed in the moments behind the battles - when he attended and helped his co-soldiers: them being horribly traumatized, every single time doctor John Watson screamed as if his life depended on it and woken up immediately. Mrs Mary Watson would attend him and held him in her arms, like a mother her little child - to calm him down. But now it was different, now he was alone Heavens know where! - with his old friend companion who kept snorting.

In that case, as it must be recorded, Mr Sherlock Holmes' snore brought his fellow doctor John H. Watson back to reality. The fifty-two-year-old man gasped and his body immediately jumbed from the covers. He found himself in the utter darkness, and was able to hear the few melancholic whistles of the train and Mr Holmes' snoring. The doctor chuckled as his colleague grumbled nonsense. He could comprehend the words: darling, mine, spread your legs for me - well! Watson had to stop listening, a red blush crept up his cheeks, as his friend moaned and groaned and mumbled words related to what was it? Yes... coitus. The fifty-year-old consulting detective dreamt about joining in a sexual intercouse and he seemed to enjoy this dream.

"Dreaming of Irene Adler again, aren't you, old chap?" The doctor whispered and as if the consultant could hear him, he groaned in refusal. Well, it was quietly inconvinient as Sherlock Holmes usually called the Late Irene Adler's name when he dreamt of her, but this very moment the doctor did not catch a name and he paid attention to each sound that came from the consulting detective's mouth.

Doctor John Watson hadn't realized that he was awake for so long, until the sun arose from his secret hideaway. The sunrise coloured his cheeks soft hues of pink and orange, and the few visible rays bathed him in a reminiscent of a childhood hug. He turned his head slowly and looks at his surroundings, seeing the rolling hills covered in tiny orange flowers. He sighed wistfully, missing home. 

"Wake up, old chap!" The doctor shook him violently to put an end to his dreams. The consulting detective promised his friend to explain the reason of their sudden journey, and the good doctor was eager and nervous to know why. "You promised to explain why you abduct me from my family!"

The detective yawned and stood, stretching to wake up better, "good morning to you too, dear Watson." He acted as if he did not listen a single word of the poor doctor, "I haven't woken up yet and you have already demands! Very selfish act of yours!"

"I need an explaination." The doctor crossed his arms, "how am I supposed to help you when you withhold your plans from me?"

"Stop whingling, Watson. I told you, I'll make things clear during breakfast. Now, we need to get ready: I'm terribly famished!"

When the doctor and his friend sat at the luncheon-car, they were alone as the two men were early birds - perhaps because as the rays of sunshine gave a glimpse to the older one he decided to wake up his friend, and no other fellow traveller showed their face. Mr Sherlock Holmes didn't mind at all, because he got all the tea for his pleasure! Then, he had a full English breakfast with eggs and bacon, Mr Holmes gestured his companion to eat something and the two years older man refused kindly. Sherlock Holmes lifted his shoulders instead knowing whenever he should push the man's bottons. While, Doctor John Watson drank two cups of white coffee with no sugar. He needed to be awake for their journey and his friend's storytelling.

"Will you tell me now, or are you expecting everyone to come?" The doctor crossed his arms and touched the chair with his back.

"Are you a doomsayer, aren't you Watson?" He drawled while eating. 

The blue-eyed doctor flashed and looked at the travellers entering the luncheon-car and finding their proper places to sit and breakfast. He knew very well that it was impossible for his companion to utter a word infront of those strangers. Not that Mr Sherlock Holmes had any problem about it, but the fact he was so consumed by his breakfast and he was mumbling nonsense checking out his companion few times, as if he was telling him something and the doctor did not understand.

"Pardon me, sir" his gaze met to the man who sat in the near table and read his newspaper. "Would you mind giving me your newspaper?" The old man grumbled and Mr Holmes stretched his hand as if to get it smiling and giving him the look that was compelling and unflinching. The fifty-year-old consulting detective, who was called by many people a madaman, glared unyielding at the white-haired man with handlebars and the large tummy. Eventually, the elder gave in and handed his weekly paper murmuring something under his thick moustache. "I'm obliged to you, sir, for your courtesy."

Did Sherlock Holmes mocked the man, or not? That was the question someone had to answer.

"Oi!" Doctor Watson vociferated as his colleague threw at his direction the news, "what the"

"Read," Mr Holmes spoke clinically. "Turn page sixteen. And, Watson," the scornful smirk stretched at his features, soulful eyes gleaming. "Be inaudible when you do this," the dark chuckle escaped the man's lips.

And so did he.

Unhappy End to Browns' Drama

Yesterday, Thursday 15 of July the body of Browns' toodler only-child was found dead near Cattewater. A senior citizen fisher was the unfortunate to find the macarbe. Both of her legs are missing, while the right was fished by the elder. The child is beaten up with broken left arm, strangled neck, and half of her face missing due to fish feeding. Mr and Mrs Edmund Brown are wretched after the uneviable final of their drama.

The private detective Charles Nichols, who took the case personally and was hired by the family says....

Doctor Watson couldn't read this thing anymore. He folded the paper and shook his body to transport the new wave of stress elsewhere. His hand found the bridge of his nose and rubbed as an action to prevent his anxiety attack. He took seven deep breaths and opened his eyes filled with fatigue.

"The Grandparents hired me," Sherlock Holmes voiced out loud his thoughts, but not so loud to be heard by any prying ears. "Mrs Brown's parents, to be exact. Or should I say the Late Mrs Brown? You see, Watson, the woman was twenty-four and pregnant reaching the fifth month of her uhm... state. She gave birth prematurely to a son and the boy didn't last. I was told she fell on Cattewater, the same waters her daughter was found. Commited suicide as you may see. The husband became an intemperate and left their house. Hardly do he socialize, I am told by his relatives. It is said he lives somewhere hiding. 

They want me to discover the murderer and bring them to justice. Very sentimental elders. Little can we judge them, my dear fellow! Not only did they lost a grandchild, but also a child!" His palm hit the desk in the so-over-the-top theatrical gesture. "Those poor souls needs justice! To be helped, saved, and redeemed! Watson, are you alright?" He asked concerned for his best friend's health as the blond coughed rapidly.

"I... I'm fine, Holmes. Just choked on my coffee," he assured. "Continue, old cock."

"As I was saying earlier, Plymouth, oh yes - I do apologize my dear for forgetting to mention where it is we are going, has this very moment we speak a dozen of slayed children. And as it appears the gouger won't stop at those twelve victims. They'll continue killing more." 

"Do I have a saying about this?" Dr John Watson mocked his best friend.

"Of course you do have, my dear fellow!" Dark brown eyes glowed and held an amber burning tone. Then he turned his gaze back to his breakfast, took a forkful baccon and egg and opened his mouth consuming it in a matter of seconds. Hereupon Mr Sherlock Holmes met the eyes of Dr John Watson affectionately, they were indeed brothers and no human could deny the obvious. "It makes a considerable difference to me, having someone with me on whom I can thoroughly rely."

"One last adventure, Holmes. I warn you," the doctor pointed. "This time I am earnest. Take a trainee, I advise."

"Until then, you are compelled to assist me so."

"I'm afraid so." His blond moustache smiled, "Good Lord, I am starving! Do you think they have something for me?"

"Naturally."

Dr Watson nodded to a waiter to come by and then order so he'd eat properly before starting their new adventure. "I do mean you need to find the sooner the better an apprentice."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, leave kudos or comments!
> 
> Wear masks, wash your hands, and stay safe!  
> -Ksenia♡


	3. The Grandparent's Mansion and Sherlock Holmes' Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys are in Plymouth! Keep reading to find more!

The woman of Doctor John Hamish Watson summertime nightmare and of Mister Sherlock Holmes nocturnal emission happened to stand there: few feet apart from them with her beauteous figure: a hidden monster in the doctor's dream, an attractable mistress in the consulting detective's dream. While the younger of the men seemed to have forgotten his amourous dream, the other didn't forget his horrendous one. But, by looking at those soft pale blue irises with the sharpness and the hunger for adventure, the long dark lashes and the rosen eyebrow, and that beaming radiant smug on her face, the nightmare disappeared in an instant: she seemed to be his friend. 

But before continuing how the trio went to solve the case, it would be a good thing to inform the reader how the young woman invaded and conquered those men's lives.

When the two men arrived in their destination, they alit from their train and the blond doctor at the railway station gropped for where to go. He was quietly lost in there. At the same train, the air felt thick and had potent smells of European station, vehicle exhaust, cluttered garbage, and the stench of urine. The foul odour of steam engine besieged his lungs causing him to hack. Alas! His smoking habbits did some damage to those specific organs, unlike his colleague who happened to smoke like a chimney.

"Good Lord, Watson," Mr Sherlock Holmes chuckled. "Someone may arguably deem you as an octogenarian gaffer."

And Dr John Watson narked peevishly, "do shut up, Holmes!"

To be said, doctor Watson happened to visit Devon a long time ago, a time before he married his wife and fathered her three children, before he met his intimate acquaintance and allied with him to bring at London's street justice being his groomsman's biographer.

Once upon another time, where the good doctor was still a child.

Doctor John H. Watson's mind nonetheless floated in the memories: of him when he was a young adolescent, his father the Late James Watson with his dark brown eyes, his mother the Late Mina Watson and her ocean blue irises - he took that feature from her, and the last but not least, his seven years younger sister Harriet.

All of them in his reminiscence were happy and joyful. The four members of the Watson family had a light-hearted countenance. With big smiles and having fun in their vacations in this place called Devon. In the good doctor's memories they were all joyful and merry filled with hope and dreams especially in the eyes of the children.

Usually to be said, most of the time, the Late Mr James Watson was a coldheart man, who rarely - perhaps it's better to be documented as once in a blue moon, showed any kind of feelings such as compassion and affinity to his family. If it could have been said, most of fathers in the earlier century were distant and unapproachable. His dark blond mutton chops did not smile, and atop his receded hair - frustratingly, this characteristic was passed down on the devoted doctor - a hat was placed to conceal this trait. Even though his brown eyes were supposed to be filled with warmth and hospitality, they were filled with coldness and bitterness.

To the contrary, his mother, the Late Mrs Wilhemina Watson's eyes were rounded and full of emotions, coloured irises in vivand ocean blue with light brown long lashes and shapely brows that never grimaced in an unpleasant expression. She was a beauty and a treasure. A daughter of a teacher and married to a lawyer, she lived a happy life as one could have said. The Late Mrs Watson was barely twenty when she espoused her two decades senior. She bore him two children: a son and a daughter, their father's legacy.

But under the façade of the smiley wife and mother, although she seemed to love her children the most, the Late Mrs Wilhemina Watson never loved her husband for the eighteen years of marriage they shared together until leprosy knocked the Watsons: a deadly disease that caused her husband to lock her away in a house far away from their own banning his children to visit her out of fear of losing his spawns - poor John Watson, he loved his mother more than any child ever loved his parent and her unfair loss motivated him to become a doctor instead of following his father's professional path, killed her in the age of thirty-eight.

Truth to be told the doctor's father wasn't the kindest of men. He was violent and cruel. The consulting detective's best friend's mind the picture of his father striking him across his cheek for what? - for disrespecting his father and going to this party that this little lady he wanted to escort invited him after the Late Mr Watson forbid him, etched for the rest of forever. A drunkhard who enjoyed coitus in an unhealthy perhaps amount. The mother rarely joined him in their bedroom, most of the time - due to her good fortune, her husband spent most of his time in his office and other times he'd find comfort in the arms of a tart. He prefered redheads to be precise - maybe that's the very reason his son inherited his love for gingers (all the past amours of the good doctor's were copperhaired and his dearest wife turned out to be a redhead herself).

There was never any love between that specific husband and wife.

But, that summertime in Plymouth back in 1868 - it was the same year the illness found the doctor's mother, would be always remembered by the Watson children and be favoured forever. And why that? Because, of course, for the first time in foverever, they looked like a merry family. The Late Mr James Watson held in his arms his wife and the Late Mrs Mina Watson laughed and smiled like a joyous kid! It was the very last time, her childlike features filled with life, that the good doctor saw his mother like this happiness. John and Harriet Watson pulled tricks on one another. They laughed and cackled because they were family once again, no reason to worry no reason to feel a burden weighed them down.

A blissful summertime dream that wouldn't last long...

"Watson!" Mr Sherlock Holmes aroused his friend from his little sentimental journey. "We arrived in the Grandparents' House. Come off the vechile, old boy! We have to unpack our stuff, here!"

"Hmm... I'm sorry," the good doctor mumbled and licked his lips before continueing. "Will we question them now?"

"Don't be silly!" The consulting detective darkly chuckled, "three days ago, before I abducted you - as you want to put it, I travelled here to see few things on my own. And honestly-"

"You could have already solved this case without my help," he deduced. "Yet, you wish me to accompany you to expose this savage killer." He placed his leather-gloved index at his lips in a signal of thinking, "or have you so soon pierced the mystery?"

"Will you allow me to continue explaining?"

"I wish you would!" The good doctor cried, "you're acting selfishly when you withhold whatever plan or action you do and expect from me to follow you like a loyal dog," he mocked in the end the Late Lord Henry Blackwood.

"Hmmm..." he rose his brows as an reaction. "I see, you are far too frustrated to concentrate on our matter. I wouldn't blame you, although," and the blond moustached doctor gasped and glared sending mentally daggers towards his friend.

"You see, even if you assist me, you spend so much time with the little family of yours. Unlike you, I happen to condemn myself in no limbo lifestyle, rather a bachelor and bohemian one. You tend to not be so often available. And, I believe, I have to agree with you about searching and finding an apprentice whom I'll teach my every trick and create an image of a detective such as my own self - not a consulting one as I am the only one on Earth, who will solve cases and mysteries and riddles when - I dearly hope not so soon, I won't be contactable any longer. Do not smile like that, Watson.

But honestly," he chuckled. "I don't think that that day would come any sooner nor our little novice detective will visit us unanticipatedly," little did Mr Sherlock Holmes know!

"I understand," Dr John Watson observed, a characteristic his dearest friend owned better than any other man on the world.

"Do you?" Said Mr Sherlock Holmes, as if he actually wanted to not end the little fight between them - to cause a scene. Why though?

"I do. I frankly brought tranquillizer, sedative, pills, anti-adrenaline pharamaceutics..."

"You claim, I'm mad?" The hurt in the consulting detective's eyes was clear.

"No, I claim~"

"I'm a madman, I see!" Mr Sherlock Holmes said frustrated.

"Will you allow me to continue?" Dr John Watson rose his eyebrows trying not to laugh.

"And let you unleash your thoughts of believing me to be a psychopath?" He barked emotionlessly at his best friend, "a lunatic? An maladjusted man?"

"I would never~"

"Yes! Because you think of me as someone who will eventually die all alone~"

"You're insane, Holmes!" The doctor lifted his hands in the air out of exasperation, "you haven't slept for a long time and you need to sleep immediately!"

"Admit it that you wish you never met me!" Lack of sleep was talking instead of Mr Sherlock Holmes. Even though, he slept the night before - he hadn't two weeks ago. He hadn't closed his eyelids to rest for the rest fourteen days.

"I'm not admiting anything," he spoke softly. "I think we should get inside the house. People are pointing towards at us. We are being the object of their ridicule."

"Admit it! Admit it!" The madman spoke few octaves higher.

"Mr Holmes!" A gaunty tall man addressed him in a deep voice. "Dr Watson," he bowed towards the blond man.

He was a man approximately seventy-five years in age, and very short - perhaps five feet three. He was corpulent, and the bottoms of his shirt could easily popped in any second. The man's face was similar to a bulldog, a very ugly one to be said. Gladstone looked handsomer compared to this old man. His hair was as white as the first fallen snow and receded, styled awfully and slicked. While his eyes showed dreariness and those grayish irises were like puny silver beads. He was dressed as it was acceptable for a manservant. A tiny smirk was placed upon his unnaturally thin lips as he bowed at the two men, never breaking the eye contact gazing at them bored to tears. 

His name was Richard Dunchan.

"Mr and Mrs Williams required from me to accompany you to your rooms and show you around the estate." His voice monotoned and lifeless, "Mrs Williams is-"

"-in the library and Mr Williams is outside fishing," Mr Sherlock Holmes finished for the manservant.

The man showed no sign of reaction not even a roll of his eyes. He was bored after all. "The master of the house commented your mental abilities, sir." A weary smile warped around the consulting detective's face with the five o'clock shadow, "please, follow me to show you to your rooms."

"Crying shame!" Mr Sherlock Holmes spoke out, "the doctor and I have shared quietly a lot of time the same mattress in bed, due to our lack of affording another one, correctly Watson?"

If Doctor Watson could kill with his glare, Mr Sherlock Holmes would have been dead instantaneously.

"Follow me" Richard Dunchan instructed.

And the two brothers by bond not blood - named Sherlock Holmes and John H. Waston, proceeded along as if they were little ducklings, the bulldog-faced elder in the Williams' house - a building that confessed an otherworldy sadness. The garden was as green as the envy of the Late Mrs Brown felt as her own child - a beautiful girl of three, now buried six feet under Earth - not being able to see the world again, the missus did throw her own self in the sea Little Mary was found putrecent, as she believed she no longer needed to live when her daughter wasn't around, and wanted to see her Mary again in the other side of the world. The Williams' estate was as white as a corpse's lifeless body and as gloom as the residents' spirits after the loss of two grandchildren and the only child's.

When they entered the mansion, a fresh face girl with vivand blue irises - the same size of an owl's, opened the main door and curtseyed biting her lower lip. She was perhaps less than a feet shorter than Sherlock Holmes, and judging by the innocence of her face's features more than just one decade younger than the mad consultant. To be precise she was that time, in July 1904, a chick of eighteen years of age. Her face was as soft as cottons and the blush crept up crimson in her lively cheeks as Mr Sherlock Holmes winked at the poor girl, and her heart racing and ready to explode from her breasts. She seemed to be a girl who read crime novels on her free times, the nighttime, and seeing a detective - the consulting detective, in front of the household she worked for, that was indeed a blessing! The chick was dressed in light blue uniform with high collar sleeves reaching her elbows, and white pinafore. Her white maid bonnet hid her chestunt hair combed in an dutch crown. And her petit figure was as tiny as a pinkie, her little nose round and rosy. The maid's name was Kelly O'Hara and she was heads-over-heels for Sherlock Holmes.

"Miss Kelly shall marshal you to your rooms," said the dog-faced man. "In addition, she'll assist you and guide wheresover in the estate. I have some business to attend: now, if you excuse me," he bowed towards both men respectively, "Mr Holmes, Dr Watson."

The mouse lady turned her heels and the men followed her in their rooms, but Mr Sherlock Holmes saw the little far-fetched details that no man usually bothered to look at. He saw in the opened door kitchen an plethoric cook yelling in French towards three maids. The woman shaked her hands violently holding a wooden spoon. She wore a white apron and rolled up her cuffs as her swearing transitioned from French to English so the little rats would understand what the tall hog was saying. Her eyes were glowing brown protuberants. In every yell her thin mouth left, spit flew through the air and hit almost everywhere in the kitchen. Poor little cooking rats! The woman's face turned into a hot shade of red as she was swearing and screaming. "Imbécile! Bête!" She bore a striking resemblance to those caricatures of German opera singers: a horn-wearing tall chubby lady. Actually, she wore no horns and she could not sing, and most important the fishwife was no German but a French and the name's Sara Yvonne Claudine Allégret de Clausonne.

And for what all this commotion? For the rats' feeble-mindlessness, and to be even more precise, for Madam Sara Allégret's anger issues. Mr Sherlock Holmes' sensitive olfaction smelled the meal the very lunch where they supposed to dine. And as it appeared, they were ment to cook roasted red pepper, sweet potato and smoked paprika soup. The strong smell of smoked paprika interloped inside his nostrils, and garlic. Yes garlic.... the Late Mary Brown was allergic to that specific ingredient. And wherefore the whole bother for a child who was no longer alive? Could never be able to grow old and being escorted by a fancy young man, being what the standards of her society expected her to act so: get married - and if she's lucky! fall in love - bear her husband many healthy and chubby little spoiled brats! For the reason that her grandma hag and her grandpa dodderer still ached not only for the loss of the granddaughter, but of the heir, and the selfish only daughter's! That could have been something that his apprentice most like has said.

And the memories were as fresh as a new wound and eating something with the ingredient that could cause Litte Miss Mary Brownie to choke almost death, lose her rosy colour and turn yellowish and emetic, gasp and try to scream - just the same way the slayer, the monster, the abominable of nature strangled her to death, and have her nurse inject her with antiallergics and epinephrine... those memories were too painful to rub it in.

"A-and, this-s is-s your roo-om," the petit woman pointed towards the wooden door leading to the one guest room where Mr Sherlock Holmes was bound to stay.

"Thank you very much, my dear!" His voice hid once again a secretive mockery, "oh!" The chick blushed as he captured her wrist gently before her leaving, "tell the doctor to have a bath to rest, I will call on him in..." Mr Sherlock Holmes slurped while checking his pocket watch - a habit also his brother Mr Mycroft Holmes had, and hummed then softly. "Fourty three minutes!" He was triumphant, "thank you so very." 

Miss Kelly bowed and retired, walking towards the room beside Mr Sherlock Holmes' and then knocked twice the door to inform the fifty-two-year-old doctor about his other half's plan, non could say Mr Holmes was better than Dr Watson or the other way around: they were both two halves so perfectly connecting with their rising and falling, that the only thing that was missing was a matching glue and a very short young dasmel causing them and saving them from distress.

"What's the matter?" Doctor John Watson crossed his arms at his broad chest glaring at his colleague. His tall frame was cladded in soft black-coloured bathrobe and the droplets of his earlier bath, fell from his head to the marble floor of Mr Sherlock Holmes' conceded room.

"Ah, dear Watson!" He exclaimed once more, "you are twenty minutes earlier than our appointment. How is it that?" The consulting detective place his hands behind his head a signature of getting comfortable.

Sherlock Holmes' attire betrayed his boredom of the very moment. He hadn't changed his pants, a pair of black ones he slipped into before they headed to the train's restaurant. The consulting detective had his white shirt creased, his sleeves turned-up, few top bottoms were opened. Lazily worn he his braces. Mr Sherlock Holmes sat long sitting rest in his bed. His face was stretched in a toothy grin, the little wrinkles in his face - on his eyes, and on his lips - were visible and gave him an air of mature man in a disguise of a cheerful child. On Mr Sherlock Holmes' teeth the famed pipe of his hanged languorously. The dark mane with the few of graying strands on his temples, the fifty-year-old consultant was in a pure mess and a quietly stubble grew so quickly from his five o'clock shadow. The brown eyes of his were as usually soulful gazing at his dearest Watson.

"By the look on your face," he took from his teeth off his pipe. "I can deduce you are as before, furious with me - in a reason I still find unwarrantable. I think I should be the apopletic one in our relationship. Shh! Do not speak, Watson! Alright, companionship, companionship. Close your mouth, flies will get inside. But I have to say the more your expression looks like this: especially how you glare me like this, the more likely a wrinkle like a knife's slit will be on your glabella. Do me a favour and do never ever question me or my methods. Silent, Watson! Thank you," a genious smile crept at his face. 

Sherlock Holmes inhaled deeply before putting his pipe back in his mouth. He drew few intakes, the tobacco invading his senses. It felt so good, so comforting, depressant - oh sweet Lord, he felt as breathing easier. "I did not question them when I firstly came. I simply observed," he lowered his head like a scorned dog. "I always count on you and rely on you. Even though, I'll be having a little person to assist me perhaps sooner than what we both expect, I still want and need you. On the contrary, this is absolutely not the issue I want to discuss with you."

"I cannot help this curse," Mr Sherlock Holmes said so naturally. "I see things, I observe things. You see, Watson, I expect for the two of us to question everyone in this state. Mostly because I know how much keen you are to fill your little biographies of mine with every single adventure."

Doctor John Hamish Watson's face lost the angry grimace, his best man was indeed a very small kid. Maybe, if they wished to solve this case, they should think more like children rather than like the murderer. Of course, it was a difficult case.

The slaughters of twelve little angels were a case that hardly could the two gentlemen solve - alone, they had no actual clue about those murders. Only the brutality, and the fact the were all children before their sixteens. There was no logic about how they picked them, as if the butcher randomly picked little kids to slay. All of them came from random places in town, when they were both still alive and dead corpses. The were of all sizes: tall and short, chubby and bony, blond, brunet, redhead and blackhead, with blue, green, gray and brown eyes, perfect teeth and crooked teeth, dimples and pimples. But all of them had three things in common: they were children, murdered in Plymouth, and with not a single exception, all of them deserved to live!

"... and we only have to expect," Sherlock Holmes pat the bed for the doctor to have a seat. "You did not listen. I see in the look of your eyes: glassy. But I detect you were thinking of those children: your irises turned a darker shade of the usual colour - it can either be for two reason: either you thought of your wife and perhaps imagine doing things to her only a married couple usual does, or your mind travelled at those unfortunate creatures." 

The doctor sat at a chair beside his best friend resting his hands on his cane, and his chin on them - waiting for his companion's words. "Your jugular vein has been popped, as also the veins in your knuckles where the skin has turned whiter due to the tight grip. It is, I must say, a very common action of anger. As well as the fact you, my dear fellow, happen to be more masochist than I - as you claim, seeing that you took a hot bath. Such an extremely hot did you take, someone says it could have been meant for to burn one alive!" He, then, chuckled darkly.

"How can you tell about me having a hot bath?" The good doctor questioned. "I finished a quarter ago." 

"But, you stayed in the bathroom for those fifteen minutes for shaving and washing your face." The mad detective grimaced, "have you ever questioned my deduction abilities?" Doctor Watson nodded negatively. "Anyways. Your face is obviously redder - it may either be for doing something that can cause body hear or you had a hot bath, and there are few water vapours due to the sudden change of ambient temperature."

"Besides," Sherlock Holmes continued. His tone more endearing, "you are angry for your abduction by me, that you most of time tend to take a rather hot bath to calm your nerves. You, also, choose hot bathing as it helps with your sore injured muscles that have never healed from the war, and made you have a limp and use a cane. Not to mention the racing of your heart due to your yesterday nightmare you had, so the hot water cleared your head and helped you calm as still racing heart. I've known you for the past twenty-three years, my good fellow, you should not be impressed."

"I never doubted you, Holmes," Dr Watson assured. "How can you tell I had a nightmare?"

"I am a light sleeper as you know." Sherlock Holmes placed to one side his pipe, "aand, you were constantly moving around the bed - you most of the time do not change your position, so I can assume you didn't sleep well. Furthermore, you were vexed in the morning during our breakfast in the train as I spoke about the child murders you choked. Perhaps, in your nightmare a specific phrase was common to one I said during our breakfast."

"You are the greatest and brightest human I have ever known!" Watson chuckled softly and Holmes bowed rather more theatrically than what supposed to.

"Do tell me what did you see?"

"What I saw, huh?" Sherlock Holmes nodded at his loyal companion. "It was a horror as worse as my times at the Afghanistan War. Perhaps it is better for you not know, but I see the oik interest in your eyes. 

I saw them, saw twelve little murdered children near a sea, was it the Cattlewater sea Little Mary and her Late Mother were found? I don't know - the horror was great. They were decaying, Holmes, they were decaying! Parts of their bodies were missing! They were gaunt, their flesh hardly hugged their bones - pale like a chalk, with rotting yellow teeth and blue eyes that could burn like ice! I tell you, Holmes, they were abused, and dirty, and covered in thick black blood." 

The doctor suddenly shivered, "and then there was this sea, as I told you before. There were crows above us, symbol of death. They were screaming and crying. And there was a fog! - you couldn't, weren't able, to see a thing. I could only see a dim light from far deeper and away which was enough to shower with light the horror I was seeing. The sea was filled with blood, Holmes, it was filled with black blood! 

And those children grabbed and sank me in that bloody sea. I tried to fight back, I tried not to surrender as they were sinking me deeper and deeper, blood invading my lungs. They were screaming a hitching nonhuman sound: Help us! Save us! Redeem us! " Doctor John H. Watson chuckled bitterly. Mr Sherlock Holmes' brown eyes were wide for a brief of seconds, for a flash, but the man who was - as said by the other one in this room, a time long ago - no human, composed himself quickly.

"And I was saved by a young woman..." his voice trailed in the end.

"A woman?" Sherlock Holmes rose his brow. "Was it the Late Mrs Edmund Brown?" John Watson tsked. "Who was she, precisely?"

"I have no idea. She seemed a lot younger than both of us - perhaps in her early twenties, but the time tired as if she had seen all the wrong of the human nature, as if she was betrayed by the humankind. And she was beautiful and a threat at the same moment. She saved me and kissed my forehead crying. And then she claimed I - we, didn't do what we are supposed to, we didn't, save them she meant, and slit my throat." 

That is what the surgeon wanted to say but he did not. Instead, "no, I don't think so. And now, Holmes, if you excuse me, I have to know what are we up to do."

"Perhaps this woman of yours did something monstrous to you or the poor children and now you refuse to tell me what was going on your dreadful dream. I doubt you forgot what's next on your nightmare, my dear fellow. You always remember what you've dreamt the previous night. And you confess those to your medical colleagues, your memory being better than any average man I know! Think of the biographies of mine you keep writing - you remember every detail. Anyway, you do are selfish for keeping such details from me."

John Watson straightened his posture, crossed his legs, and then his arms on his chest.

"I don't think I got the answer I'm looking for."

Sherlock Holmes only rolled his eyes - taked a deep breath filling his lungs with the savoury sensation of tobacco in the inside of him. "It's highly unlikely if we ever catch the killer. They must be someone who is trusted by children. Also, the murders could occur due to the need of revenge over someone's child loss. Especially a mother, so I can pressume a mother who lost her offspring went mad at the idea of another kid living unlike her own, drives her to moral insanity. So what she does? She kills - kills to avenge her child's death. In conclusion our killer is of female gender. 

As for how we will find her, that's the difficult task. But firstly, we should find our next victim to research with a freshly dead body," chuckled he. "And check it straightforwardly us. We will only have to wait until our little murderer decides to strike again. It's the only way to solve this case: a sacrfice."

"But a new death? Twelve children died, Holmes! Twelve..." the doctor with the blond moustache stated simlly this obvious fact. "Should't we found another way so no more harm will find the Plymouth's children, so they'll be safe once again, so non of them is going to die? They are children, Holmes - children."

"Unless we have this sacrifce, the game will be diffuclt for us." He took of his pipe and held it with his sun-kissed hand, "if we want to save, help, and redeem," oh that bastard! - he quoted what scared Watson causing the fifty-two-year-old doctor to whimper and shiver out of fear as if being seven and not fifty-two. "Them, we are bound to lose one for the sake of the lives of the rest of them."

"Will it be only one?" Dr Watson didn't make any eye contact with his ally.

"I promise to you." The younger man smiled softly. "Only one, and then all the children will be at last safe. Only one, so the killer will be hung for the commiting crimes."

"I pray no more children will be dead from the hands of a psychotic killer," John Hamish Watson closed his eyes and brought his hands together in a palms' embrace. He prayed out loud "and then, as they'll be still alive to do so much more - lead their lives better than we all adults manage to do to our owns, avoiding the mistakes we have done in our youth, and creating a better world - a better future."

"When did you become such a dreamer, Watson?" Sherlock Holmes chuckled the pipe now in the proper place of its owner's mouth.

"Ever since I became a father," he replied and his best friend hummed.

"Being so sentiment might ruin you. Focus on the case." He snapped and said bitterly, "you'll be vulnerable if you don't. Emotions are the enemy, and we have to control them, if we wish to put an end to this massacre."

"You'll only understand when you'll become a father, Holmes." The doctor sneezed - was he catching cold? And then, before the consulting detective could utter a word or snap something back, his colleague was out of his room. But before leaving he said: "only when you become a father and hold for the first time your child, you'll understand."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little backstory for Watson written by my wild imagination!
> 
> Did you like it?
> 
> Leave kudos or comments!
> 
> Thank U,  
> Ksenia♡


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